Country Musical Chairs
What's up with Tobago, anyway? I mean, they've been getting a free ride since, like, 1889, scant years after Keith Richards made the scene. Before that, they were nobody, just a tiny little island in the southernmost part of the Caribbean. Blink once and you'd miss it. Bring it up in conversation, and people would give you the side-eye or yawn to the point of nodding off. Or worse, look right past you like you'd somehow sullied their soiree with minutiae so banal that even the wallflower in the corner wanted no part of it. Their name, originating from the coastal South American people, means "the place where tobacco is grown". How grand. When given the choice of vacationing there or its northeast neighbor, Barbados, guess who wins every time? It's one of those "Jeopardy" answers that begs the question, "Why, again, are we even talkin' about this?"
So, yeah, Tobago, sitting there all by itself, getting virtually no press for eons, decided to do something about it in the late nineteenth century by hooking up with Trinidad, the unification finally resulting in independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, forming that island tag team, Trinidad and Tobago, that we've all come to know and love. Forget the fact that Trinidad is eleven times larger with a population of 1.4 million people versus Tobago's sparse 60 thousand (yeah, I said thousand), somehow Tobago has managed to maintain equal billing. Granted, it's mentioned second, but it's always mentioned. Except for that time at a party where I cut it short, just going with"Trinidad" and someone immediately piped up, "And Tobago, right?"... I don't talk to that person anymore (Hank, you know who you are!).
So, the question is "how"? How did Tobago achieve the same status as its colossally bigger, bolder and brighter neighbor? What was in it for Trinidad, ya know, besides top billing? Could it have been just an affectionate big-brother island wishing to protect its much smaller, weaker sibling isle by taking it under its wing? Or maybe Trinidad, reeling from its constant poor showing at the Olympics, wanted to bring another presence in to share the blame in future endeavors. Or might it have been something as simple as the Trinidadians having a nasty tobacco habit and miraculously, "the place where tobacco is grown" happened to reside right next door?... Yeah, I know, weak sauce; none of it rings true. There's gotta be something more down and dirty here. Something more sinister. Something like incriminating photos of Trinidad in a compromising position with a mainland hottie (Venezuela, you know who you are!).
Look, I know I'm belaboring the point here; what countries do with their names is their own business. And, having checked, I found Trinidad and Tobago weren't alone in their dual citizenship; there's also Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (an island country off the eastern Caribbean), along with São Tomé and Príncipe (an island country in the Gulf of Guinea). Gotta say, though, neither of these other two dualities have ever come up in conversation that I've been part of, so props to Trinidad and Tobago for somehow making their presence known amongst the plethora of nations--some 195 (depending on who you consult)--on this earth. Indeed, there are plenty of other countries that can only wish they were as recognizable; Lesotho, Burundi, Palau and Benin take note. And maybe look into hiring a publicist ('cause nobody knows who you are!).
I guess what bothers me most about having to slog through all seven syllables is that this backwater country doesn't bring enough to the table to justify the aggravation. I mean, look at us, a nation with our heightened global status--able to pull off a duality in a New York minute if we so desired--and yet we're not playing fast and loose with our territories, force-feeding the "United States and Puerto Rico" or "America and the U.S. Virgin Islands" down people's throats. Likewise, American Samoa and Guam aren't lobbying for shared billing in an attempt get their name in lights. It's unwarranted, and they know better. They get it. Hell, we'll even shorten our name, going with just "America" or the "U.S." if deemed necessary. So, Trinidad and Tobago, take a page out of our "less is more" book and simplify. Maybe go with "Trini T" or "Tribago" or, better still, something really explosive, as in "T n' T'". As in, "Yo, jettin' down to T n' T to get my tan on!"... Whoa, I just got goose bumps.